wear the yellow star, and were used as slave
laborers. In the summer of 1941, however, plans were made for the
"final solution" of the Jewish question in Europe. This
"final solution" meant the extermination of the Jews, which
early in 1939 Hitler had threatened would be one of the consequences
of an outbreak of war, and a special section in the Gestapo under
Adolf Eichmann, as head of Section B 4 of the Gestapo, was formed to
carry out the policy.

The plan for exterminating the Jews was developed shortly after
the attack on the Soviet Union. Einsatzgruppen of the Security Police
and SD, formed for the purpose of breaking the resistance of the
population of the areas lying behind the German armies in the East,
were given the duty of exterminating the Jews in those areas. The
effectiveness of the work of the Einsatzgruppen is shown by the fact
that in February 1942 Heydrich was able to report that Estonia had
already been cleared of Jews and that in Riga the number of Jews had
been reduced from 29,500 to 2,500 Altogether the Einsatzgruppen
operating in the occupied Baltic States killed over 135,000 Jews in
three months.

Nor did these special units operate completely independently of
the German Armed Forces. There is clear evidence that leaders of the
Einsatzgruppen obtained the co-operation of Army commanders. In one
case the relations between an Einsatzgruppe and the military
authorities was described at the time as being "very close,
almost cordial"; in another case the smoothness of an
Einsatzcommando's operation was attributed to the "understanding
for this procedure" shown by the Army authorities.

Units of the Security Police and SD in the occupied territories
of the East, which were under civil administration, were given a
similar task. The planned and systematic character of the Jewish
persecutions is best illustrated by the original report of the SS
Brigadier-General Stroop, who was in charge of the destruction of the
ghetto in Warsaw, which took place in 1943. The Tribunal received in
evidence that report, illustrated with photographs, bearing on its
title page:
"The Jewish Ghetto in Warsaw No Longer Exists."
The volume records a series of reports sent by Stroop to the Higher
SS and Police Führer East. In April and May of 1943, in one
report, Stroop wrote:

"The resistance put up by the Jews
and bandits could only be suppressed by energetic actions of our
troops day and night The Reichsführer SS ordered therefore on 23
April 1943 the cleaning out of the ghetto with utter ruthlessness and
merciless tenacity. I therefore decided to destroy and burn down the
entire ghetto, without regard to the armament factories. These
factories were systematically dismantled and then burnt. Jews usually
left their hideouts, but